Zambian president calls for accelerated investment in Africa's digitisation

Lusaka: Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema called for accelerated investment in digitisation across Africa to enhance development and people's well-being.

Hichilema said digitisation and technology were critical to accelerating Africa's socio-economic development, with digital platforms having the capacity to reduce the cost of doing business and make life easy in Africa, Xinhua news agency reported.

"I believe that we are gathered here because we acknowledge that digitisation is critical to answering our countries and continent's quest for accelerating economic and social transformation," he said while addressing the 2024 Digital Government Africa Summit.

The Zambian president said digitisation and technology could go a long way in helping Africa tackle some of the growing problems such as migration, noting that it could also be used to make the continent's borders more efficient so that countries could trade more with each other.

Hichilema, however, expressed his concern that African governments were holding back the digitisation agenda, saying that it was high time to embrace digitisation.

According to him, digital tools offer immense opportunities for African countries to serve citizens and grow economies.

Felix Mutati, Zambia's minister of Technology and Science, said the country has made progress in setting up an Artificial Intelligence centre of excellence and in the formulation of the Artificial Intelligence strategy.

Mutati said the government was working with international partners in promoting digitisation in the country and emphasised the country's commitment to leveraging technology to streamline public service delivery.

The summit, which started Wednesday and runs through to Friday, has attracted over 500 delegates from 33 African countries.